ARTICLES ABOUT NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BY DATE - PAGE 2

By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. nuclear safety regulator reiterated o n Friday he does not bully women, a day after President Barack Obama said he would renominate one of the agency's commissioners who had accused the chairman of ill treatment. "There's been a little bit of talk recently about my treatment of women ... any of these accusations that I specifically target women are categorically untrue," Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told a hastily arranged news conference at the National Press Club.

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will renominate Republican Kristine Svinicki to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, defying opposition from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a White House official told Reuters on Thursday. Republicans want Svinicki, whose term as a commissioner expires in June, to stay on the panel and believe the process is being held up because she, along with three other commission members, accused the current NRC chairman, a Democrat, of bullying women.

Exelon Corp. prevailed Wednesday against a legal challenge over the safety of its Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey, the oldest reactor in its fleet. A coalition of nuclear-safety and environmental groups had contested the 2009 extension of Oyster Creek's operating license for another 20 years. The groups claimed that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which reviews renewal applications, had improperly denied their efforts to raise significant safety issues during the licensing process.

An otherwise garden-variety workplace dispute has posed a larger question at the Byron nuclear generation station, 80 miles west of Chicago: How adequately are security guards trained and equipped to protect nuclear power plants? The question is raised by a complaint brought before a federal administrative judge by Matt Simon, a former guard and weapons trainer at Byron who is asking the court to decide between two explanations for why he no longer works at the facility. Was he an incompetent employee who falsified weapons logs, as claimed by Exelon Corp.

A radioactive leak at Exelon's Dresden nuclear power plant has been contained and isn't a risk to public health, authorities said Tuesday. Leaked tritium -- a radioactive byproduct of nuclear reaction that can cause cancer and birth defects -- was found Saturday during routine tests at the Grundy County plant, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The leak is not believed to have left the 1,700-acre plant site, which is not far from the Kankakee and Des Plaines Rivers.

A plan to dismantle Zion's nuclear power plant will be delayed by up to 15 months because the fund that will pay for the $1 billion decommissioning has declined in value, officials announced this week. The fund's value, estimated at $900 million in January, has dropped by about 10 percent because of the declining economy, said Marshall Murphy, spokesman for Exelon Nuclear, which is responsible for fund oversight and owns the power plant. Exelon would not name the fund's managers, but Murphy described the investments as conservative and said they follow guidelines from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Representatives from a half-dozen area building trades unions voiced strong support this week for a $978 million plan to tear down the Zion nuclear power plant. Lynn Karner, president of the Lake County Construction and Building Trades Council, said that's in part because the project would create hundreds of jobs for union workers over the next 10 years. At the same time, "we'd like to see this lake reclaimed," he said at a hearing Wednesday night in Zion that was sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of the process of evaluating plans to decommission the plant.

As crude oil briefly leapt Tuesday to a record $122.73 a barrel, and one analyst suggested the price might soon reach $200, America would seem poised for a nuclear power resurgence. But enthusiasm for a nuclear future was muted at an industry conference Tuesday in Chicago, as executives acknowledged financial, regulatory and waste storage hurdles have raised uncertainties about costs. Other factors increasing the expense of construction include high demand for nuclear plants in emerging countries, along with limited supplies of reactor parts and increased prices for iron, steel and concrete.